<Begin Segment 24>

TI: Let's talk, go back to you. So after the war what did you do, after you graduated? So you're the first postwar high school class, and you said it was pretty festive and good, so what did you do after high school?

HH: I, because everybody, the war's over, I think more than half of our classmates went to college. And so you'd get caught up in everything and I was sent to college -- first high school. So he must have made all the arrangement. I stayed at the Buddhist dormitory and went to the university in Honolulu and graduated in 1950.

TI: And were you the first person in your family to go to college?

HH: That's right, yeah. The rest all were -- well, she went to Japan, but my other sister went to business school and the other went to beauty school, and my brother went into the war, so I was the first one.

TI: So how did that make you feel? I mean, there's some sense of responsibility being the first --

HH: No, you don't know anything. You don't realize that you're the first. [Laughs] It just so happens.

TI: Oh, so it wasn't too much pressure. It wasn't like people said...

HH: No. In fact, my brother, my kid brother, because they want to send the boys to the school, he said, "Can you please go to college 'cause I don't want to go." [Laughs] So he's gonna step aside, so they weren't pressured to give him, wait for him to go to college. He wanted me to go.

TI: Did you ever have a conversation with your father or mother about leaving the island and going to Oahu and going to college?

HH: Oh, no.

TI: So nothing...

HH: No. Except that I knew it was hard, but there was no choice. We took the cheapest route.

TI: And then you had friends also doing similar things.

HH: Lots of friends. We all, lots went to college. I think this is the first class that had so many go to college, but the time was right.

TI: And when you go to college, how frequently during your college years do you return to Hilo?

HH: Every, what you call, vacation. Summer you come home.

TI: And what did you study at, in Hawaii, at the University of Hawaii?

HH: Social science.

TI: So after you've -- well, before we even go after -- so what was it like leaving the island, leaving Hilo and going to Oahu? How did that change you?

HH: You were independent and you had to, and you had to watch your funds, so there wasn't much that you could do, and you did most things in groups. Everybody else was doing it.

TI: I think it must be a very different time for you, 'cause you're part of a big family where everything was more family-centered, and now you're off on your own a little bit more, you're...

HH: Yeah, but I was at a dorm and it was a Japanese church. And there were a lot of us, so we all did whatever.

TI: Did, did living away from home give you any different perspectives about your family or life on Hilo, now that you were away? When you look back at Hilo, did you have a different way of looking at it?

HH: Oh, I don't know. Not that intellectual. [Laughs]

TI: Did you ever get homesick?

HH: Oh, no. When you're at a dorm there's a large group and you do a lot with the group and you, you make your time. Living in a dorm is good fun.

TI: And did you start doing things like dating and things like that?

HH: Oh, no, no, no. We had no access to the kitchen.

TI: Well, I mean like, I'm sorry, like social life with boys. Did you date with other, with...

HH: Oh, yeah.

TI: And was that different than when you were on Hilo?

HH: Oh yeah, because that's wartime, you couldn't have any social life. In Hilo. But there you could.

TI: So describe a little bit about the social life.

HH: Just go movies and come to the dorm and stay... not that much.

TI: And in the dorm, did, were they mostly Japanese from the other islands?

HH: Oh, yes, 'cause that's a Japanese dorm.

TI: So there were places like, what, Hilo, Kauai, and places like that?

HH: Yeah. So we met people from Kauai, from Maui and, you know, we became friends.

TI: Okay, good.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.